Meet Our 2025 ESPRIT Award Winner: Lorraine Nicolo

For Lorraine Nicolo, Director and HR Business Partner at VNS Health, the most rewarding part of her job is “when I make someone’s day.” That might happen when a colleague comes to her with a complex problem and she helps them think it through, offering a new perspective that leads to a solution. It can also happen when a person she’s helped, regardless of outcome, says, “thank you for listening, and for allowing me to be heard.”

Those moments reflect the deep trust Lorraine has built over her three-plus years at VNS Health. “In the past, concerns were often raised anonymously by team members,” Lorraine explains. “Now, people feel comfortable coming directly to me. They trust that I’ll keep our conversation confidential and that I’m listening.”

When Lorraine arrived at VNS Health, her supervisor challenged her, noting that the people she’d be supporting needed to feel listened to in order to build trust. Lorraine made it her mission to do just that. “Everyone knows that they can reach out to me any time, and I will jump in with you and never say ‘no’,” she vows.

Colleagues call her a steady presence who brings “safety, calm, and professionalism” to challenging situations. “She always makes time to speak with me often during tough moments, no matter how much she has on her plate,” one fellow team member says of Lorraine.

Lorraine took an indirect path to health care, spending over 30 years at JP Morgan Chase, before shifting her focus. “I was always a people person,” she reflects, preferring that to “crunching numbers all day.” When she was laid off during the pandemic, inspired by family members in the health care field, she reinvented herself with a certificate in medical billing and coding.

When Lorraine learned she’d won an ESPRIT Award, she reports she nearly fell off her chair. “What a special honor—it means a lot to me,” she says. “It means I made a difference, and I feel proud of that.”